BL 

X8 



A 

HISTORY OF RELIGIONS. 

BEING 

A Condensed Statement of the Results of 



SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH 

AND 

PHILOSOPHICAL CRITICISM. 



ELIZABETH E. EVANS. 



COPY I 



NEW YORK : 
THE COMMONWEALTH COMPANY, 
28 Lafayette Place. 



Copyright 1892, 
By E. E. EVANS. 



A HISTORY OF RELIGIONS. 



Anantasastram bahulascha vidyah alpascha kalo 
bahuvighnata cha ; yatsarabhutam tadupasaniyam. 

— Vriddha-ch&nakya, xv, 10. 



"Books are innumerable; sciences are many; life is 
short and hindrances are frequent : seek therefore the 
essence of knowledge. " 

"Each temple with new weight of idols nods, 
And borrowed altars smoke to other gods." 

Astarte shines in Jewish Mary's fame 

Still Queen of Heaven, another and the same." 

— Horace Walpole. 

"The end of man, according to the Stoics, is not to 
find peace, either in life or in death. It is to do his 
duty and to tell the truth." — Lecky. 



s 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 5 



PAGE 

The Origin of the Race, . . . 17 

Immortality, .18 

Worship, 24 

The Hindu Trinity, 29 

Krishna, . . . . . . . • . 31 

The Jewish Scriptures, . . .34 
The New Testament, ..... 63 

The Work of Jesus, 78 
Christianity, 83 



PREFACE. 



This book offers to the public a con- 
densed statement of the results of scien- 
tific research and philosophical criticism, 
as applied to the history of religion. 

The facts quoted are drawn from va- 
rious works in various languages, Euro- 
pean and Oriental — works which are inac- 
cessible to the majority of readers, while 
many who might obtain them have no 
time to master their extensive details and 
elaborate arguments. 

The conclusions express the deliberate 
and earnest convictions of the writer — con- 
victions held in common with free-think- 
ers not a few, and which a still greater 
number of thinkers not free accept in 
secret, while outwardly refraining from 



8 



PREFACE. 



any expression of sympathy with such 
ideas. 

Many of the statements concerning an- 
cient superstitions, and their correspond- 
ence with more modern dogmas, are 
likely to be contradicted — by the un- 
learned, because they will not have it 
that these things are so; by the learn- 
ed, because few scholars are sufficiently 
free from religious prejudice not to en- 
tertain fixed views, with which all new 
discoveries must be made to harmonize. 

It cannot be denied that in the de- 
partment of Biblical criticism an immense 
amount of falsehood has been accepted 
in support of established notions, and a 
great deal of truth suppressed or dis- 
torted, whenever its honest consideration 
has seemed to militate against the text 
of Scripture, or the interpretation of fa- 
vorite commentators. 

As a specimen of the one-sided and 
utterly unscholarly method which is often 
resorted to when religious questions are 



PREFACE. 



9 



under discussion, take the following quo- 
tation from Townsend's " Historical and 
Chronological Arrangement of the Old 
and New Testaments" — a work which is 
an acknowledged authority among Eng- 
lish divines, and from which is drawn a 
large portion of the information used in 
the religious instruction of Protestant 
youth. After asserting that the Book of 
Job was obtained by Moses while in Mid- 
ian and by him, with some alterations, 
addressed to the Israelites, the author 
says : 

" My chief reason for assigning to the 
Book of Job its present date (B.C. 2337) 
is derived from a consideration of the 
manner in which God had condescended 
to deal with mankind. Idolatry, as we 
read in the preceding part of this period, 
had occasioned the dispersion from Ba- 
bel. It was gradually encroaching still 
farther on every family which had not 
yet lost the knowledge of the true God. 
Whoever has studied the conduct of 



to 



PREFACE. 



Providence will have observed that God 
has never left himself without a witness 
in the world to the truth of his religion, 
" To the old world, Noah was a preacher 
and a witness; to the latter times of pa- 
triarchism, Abraham and his descendants; 
to the ages of the Levitical law, Moses, 
David, and the Prophets; and to the first 
ages of Christianity, the apostles and 
martyrs were severally witnesses of the 
truth of God. But we have no account 
whatever, unless Job be the man, that 
any faithful confessor of the one true 
God arose between the dispersion from 
Babel and the call of Abraham. If it 
be said that the family of Shem was the 
visible church of that age, it may be 
answered that it is doubtful whether even 
this family were not idolatrous ; for 
Joshua told the Israelites that the ances- 
tors of Abraham were worshipers of im- 
ages." 

Was ever comment so void of all the 
qualities which give value to criticism? 



PREFACE. 



1 1 



Alas! Yes: such specimens of reasoning- 
abound in theological lore. Special plead- 
ings, gratuitous assumptions, and illogical 
inferences of this kind corrupt the ear- 
liest and highest sources of Scriptural 
hermeneutics and Christian polemics. 
Thus, Origen, the father of Biblical exe- 
getics, and the first defender of the 
faith, in his attempt to refute the as- 
sertion of Celsus, that, according to a 
current Jewish tradition, Jesus was the 
natural son of a Roman soldier named 
Panthera, declares that so pure-minded 
and benevolent a being could not have 
been a bastard, because bastards are es- 
pecially tainted with evil tendencies ; and 
then adduces, as his chief argument, 
the necessity of Jesus being miraculously 
conceived and born of a virgin, because 
Isaiah (vii, 14) had prophesied that the 
future Messiah should be thus' incar- 
nated." 

And it is not alone the bigoted and 
the ignorant of the present day who 



12 



PREFACE. 



deal thus unfairly. Many really learned 
and comparatively liberal-minded writers 
are induced, either through their own 
beliefs, or through fear of offending the 
prevailing religious sentiment, to give a 
wrong coloring to facts which cannot be 
entirely ignored. 

Hence the erroneous estimate of the 
Hebrew theocracy, as compared with the 
ancient religions of Egypt, Assyria, and 
Greece; hence the limited ideas concern- 
ing the doctrine of Confucius, Zarathus- 
tra, Buddha, and other reformers; hence 
the force of many absurd aphorisms, 
such as : " Socrates died like a philosopher ', 
Jesus Christ like a God ; " hence the de- 
preciation of the moral teachings of Epic- 
tetus, Antoninus, and other "heathen" 
exemplars. 

These remarks apply especially to the 
treasures of Indian literature, now being 
brought into notice through translations 
by Sanskrit scholars. 

Although the acquirement of knowl- 



PREFACE. 



13 



edge from this source must necessarily 
be slow, it is safe to say that if the 
acquisitions therefrom, as regards the 
science of Religions, were as confirma- 
tory as they are destructive of the 
claims of Christianity, the world would 
by this time be much better acquainted 
than it is with the contents of the 
Vedas and the Indian epics. As the 
matter now stands, there is a manifest 
reluctance to popularize the most striking 
characteristics of these remarkable writ- 
ings, while the coincidences which are 
acknowledged are so explained away in 
the light of " the right religion , which is 
ours," that few readers are startled or 
puzzled by what is placed before them 
upon this subject. 

There are books which tell the truth 
and the whole truth, so far as it is 
known, in relation to these matters, and 
which do not hesitate to accept the con- 
clusions made necessary by the facts; 
but such books are not usually promi- 



14 



PREFACE. 



nent upon booksellers' shelves, and are 
seldom quoted by divines in their ser- 
mons. Their authors are either true schol- 
ars, searching for knowledge and fearless 
of results; or professed free-thinkers, glad 
of every weapon which can be used 
against an established creed. Either 
character is dangerous, and to be aovided 
by him who would preserve his faith 
unshaken; consequently, only those com- 
mentators upon Indian literature are popu- 
lar who are careful to supplement every 
damaging statement by a pious refer- 
ence to the "one true faith," and who, 
in the face of probability and of evi- 
dence, boldly relegate to the first cen- 
turies of the Christian era all myths 
which appear to contain the original ma- 
terial of the miraculous story of Christ. 

Krishna, the black god of India, is in- 
deed the bete-noir of orthodox "Oriental- 
ists. 

And for scholars who take a more 
general survey of the history of religion, 



PREFACE. 



1 5 



there are Osiris and Mithra and Thammuz 
and Adonis and a host of other" embodi- 
ments of the sun's career, each and all 
bearing an astonishing family likeness to 
that character compounded of folk-lore 
and philosophical dream which for nearly 
two thousand years has borne the sins 
and carried the infirmities of Christianity, 
and now shows signs of giving way en- 
tirely under the overwhelming burden. 

The only work known to the writer 
which, from the standpoint of belief in 
Christianity and the Church, deals fairly 
with history, and admits the significance 
of heathen myths when compared with 
the story of Christ, is that remarkable 
book, "The Keys of -the Creeds," re- 
cently published anonymously. Its au- 
thor is evidently able to calculate all 
the phases of the present crisis in re- 
ligious thought, and he hastens to pre- 
sent what is really the strongest and 
safest plea in favor of a system, which, 
often desperately assaulted by argument, 



i6 



PREFACE. 



is now threatened with utter destruction 
by facts. 

And what is this plea? 

The assertion that the Church is nec- 
essary for the cultivation of the ideal in 
man; although, so far as the real is con- 
cerned, all creeds are alike false. 

And this is the utmost that Chris- 
tianity has to offer! 



A HISTORY OF RELIGIONS. 



THE ORIGIN OF THE RACE. 

Concerning the origin of the human 
race, nothing is positively known. 

The most recent scientific discoveries 
tend to establish the theory that man is 
a development of the ape, through nu- 
merous intervening types, some of which 
have disappeared from the earth. 

The legends of many savage tribes de- 
scribe the manner in which their ances- 
tors were gradually evolved out of the 
lower forms of animal life, and thus the 
testimony of mythology corresponds with 

the results of scientific research, 
2 



18 IMMORTALITY. 

Even the Hebrew story of creation 
confirms, so far as such a tradition can 
be said to have any confirmatory force, 
the theory of the low origin of man- 
kind. To be naked and not ashamed 
implies a very primitive stage of bar- 
barism, and the next step in advance 
is the making of aprons of leaves and 
coats of the skins of wild beasts. 

IMMORTALITY. 

The belief has long been prevalent 
that man is a compound of body, mind, 
and spirit, and that the mind (that is, 
the thinking power) and the spirit (that 
is, the conscience) survive the decay of 
the body. But every new discovery in 
pathological and organic science appears 
to demonstrate the identity and indivisi- 
bility of all the powers and functions 
of man, and to limit their existence and 
action to the period of individual life in 
the mortal body. In the present devel- 



IMMORTALITY. 



19 



opment of science, a final solution of the 
problem is not possible. 

The idea of immortality originated from 
man's dissatisfaction with the short span 
and heavy troubles of earthly life, and 
from his sense of justice, which demands 
that wrong shall not always go unpun- 
ished, nor virtue be unrewarded in the 
end. It was the idea of a developed 
moral sense. 

There are some tribes of savages who 
have no conception of a future state, and 
there is no trace of the belief in the 
earlier records of the Hebrews. 

The Indian theory of Metempsychosis, 
or the transmigration of souls, is prob- 
ably the first expression of the idea, and 
its culminating feature, the final absorp- 
tion of the purified spirit into the Origi- 
nal Essence, has been, in every age, and 
is still, a satisfactory explanation of the 



20 



IMMORTALITY. 



mystery to many minds which have not 
been able to accept the theory of con- 
tinued individual consciousness. 

The Indian system of philosophy granted 
souls to the lower animals. The Chris- 
tian system of religion has confined the 
spiritual nature to human beings. 

The results of scientific investigation 
go to establish the principle that the dif- 
ference between the mental and moral 
faculties of man and those of the inferior 
animals is in degree rather than in kind. 

The instinctive desire for and the gen- 
eral belief in immortality are not proofs 
of the truth of the doctrine. We desire 
immortality because we are unwilling to 
die; and we believe in it because we are 
taught from infancy to do so, our minds 
being predisposed to the idea through 
the transmitted influence of many gen- 
erations of believing ancestors. 



IMMORTALITY. 



21 



At the present time, many persons 
hold, in place of the Christian doctrine 
of the immortality of the individual soul, 
a belief in the immortality of the race. 
Each individual exerts a certain amount 
of influence, which is never lost, but goes 
to make up the average standard of his 
generation, and through that concentrated 
influence to affect the progress of all 
succeeding generations. 

But, except in moments of great ex- 
altation of feeling and of profound self- 
sacrifice, this theory is not satisfying. 

The heart of man cries out for re- 
union with departed loved ones, and the 
mind of man desires continued activity, 
under more perfect conditions than earthly 
life can offer. Besides, a sense of justice 
seems to demand a future reward for 
present honest endeavor. The men and 
women who labor most earnestly and 
wisely for their fellows are always in 
advance of their time, and, therefore, not 
only do their work under many Hn- 



22 



IMMORTALITY. 



drances, but are obliged to leave it un- 
finished and die in doubt as to its ulti- 
mate success. 

Still, the craving for a future devel- 
opment of our faculties is no proof that 
an opportunity for such development awaits 
us in another state of existence. These 
feelings may be only the natural sequence 
of our present powers. 

Love is an eternal impulse in the race ; 
therefore it will not consent to the an- 
nihilation of a chosen object, and the 
intellect being constituted for incessant 
activity refuses to conceive of rest. 

With regard to this mysterious ques- 
tion it may be said that while we need 
not check all our dreams of future and 
endless happiness, we have no right to 
shape our lives with any reference to 
what may or may not be our condition 
hereafter. Our present work is in this 
world, and the habit of looking beyond 
involves not only a waste of time, but 



IMMORTALITY. 



23 



an obscuration of the duties that lie close 
about us. 

Talk of immortality as much as we 
may, our minds are really as incapable 
of conceiving the idea of the eternity 
of spirit as of the eternity of matter. 

As in all forms of religious credulity, 
so, in the anticipation of a future exist- 
ence, the barbarians' faith is simple and 
unquestioning. It never occurs to him 
to doubt the tradition of his tribe on 
this point. The strength of this feeling 
explains the readiness with which mem- 
bers of savage or semi-civilized commu- 
nities sacrifice themselves to the gods, 
and accounts also for their bravery in 
battle and contempt of death. The pa- 
gan Germans and Gauls had such an un- 
wavering conviction of a life after death 
that they even made contracts on the 
basis of this belief, and accepted promises 
to pay in the next world. 



WORSHIP. 



With the intellectual development of 
the race and the culture of the individ- 
ual, the faith in immortality grows weaker. 
Absolute certainty gives place to a more or 
less probable conjecture, and possibility 
of other-worldly requitals ceases to influ- 
ence human action. Men "jump the life 
to come," and regulate their conduct, 
either for the promotion of their earthly 
interest, or according to an ideal stand- 
ard of right, without " respect unto the 
recompense of the reward." 

WORSHIP. 

There is as yet no proof of the exist- 
ence of any personal intelligence behind 
the system of law which regulates the 
universe. 

The idea of a God originated from 
the fears of man in the presence of nat- 
ural forces which he is unable to con- 
trol. 



WORSHIP. 



25 



As man became developed in the ca- 
pacity to think and to reason, he nat- 
urally associated a personal form with 
each of the impersonal agencies in ac- 
tion around him, and classed these im- 
aginary beings as friends or enemies, 
according as their functions resulted in 
benefit or in injury to himself. 

The number of superior powers would 
gradually be lessened as man observed 
that many phenomena were due to one 
and the same source. 

In time, and under certain modifica- 
tions of character, the conception of a 
sole ruler of the universe would become 
possible. 

It is not yet known whether the adora- 
tion of the creative function in man pre- 
ceded or followed the worship of the 
powers of external nature. Both cults 
originated at a very early stage of human 



26 



WORSHIP. 



development, and the ideas pertaining to 
each were often intermingled. 

The sun being to dwellers on earth 
the largest object in the heavens, the 
chief embodiment of the principle of life, 
the great dispenser of good and disperser 
of evil, became the prevailing deity of 
primitive worship among all people. 

All ancient myths and symbols have 
reference to Generation, and all later 
religions are developments, more or less 
spiritual, of this original idea. 

The analogy between the reproductive 
power of human beings and of the earth 
led naturally to the personification of the 
elements and of the heavenly bodies. 

The idea of a trinity of gods is founded 
upon the triple form of the male organs 
of generation ; the idea of the unity of 
God has reference to the physiological 



WORSHIP. 



27 



structure of the female; the three in one 
means the union of the male and female 
energies in the process of generation. 

In primitive times the male organ, as 
the symbol of creative force, was wor- 
shiped in the form of a radiant pillar 
— proving that the worship of the sun 
and of fire were developed from the 
same idea. 

Out of this symbol grew the spire, 
the tower, the minaret, and the cross, as 
indicative of the male potency ; just as the 
circle, the oval, the cave, the chasm, the 
ark, the ship, the door, became symbols 
of the feminine agency in the act of 
creation. 

In the same way the sun was chosen 
as the emblem of masculine force, while 
the moon and the earth represented the 
reflected power and receptive fecundity 
illustrative of the feminine function. 



28 



WORSHIP. 



Later, these attributes were personified 
in allegorical characters, such as : Jah, 
Jupiter, Baal, Osiris, Thammuz, Odin, 
Thor, for the male element, and Isis, 
Astarte, Maya, Venus, Diana, Mary, for 
the female element; while Elohim, Baal- 
im, Arba, the bearded Venus, the femi- 
nine Jove, Isis and Horus, the Virgin 
and Child represented androgynous de- 
ities, and also suggested sexual union as 
a fundamental law of nature. 

The circle including a triangle, the 
handled cross, the key surmounted by a 
crescent, the complicated cross, and the 
double triangle are emblems of androgy- 
nous deities, and refer to the power of 
independent creation, supposed to be in- 
herent in both male and female divini- 
ties. 

The choice between the masculine and 
feminine elements as the chief object of 
adoration depended upon the character of 
the worshipers. The Jews, a warlike 



THE HINDU TRINITY. 29 

people, who greatly preferred male child- 
ren, worshiped a masculine deity; while 
in some parts of India, the Sakti were 
preferred to Siva; and Isis, not Osiris, was 
the favorite god of Egypt. 

The same distinction is shown even 
now in Christianity, especially in the 
Romish Church, where, in general, the 
worship of the Virgin has almost super- 
seded that of the Trinity; although the 
Jesuits and their feminine complement, 
the "Order of the Sacred Heart," show a 
strong preference for a masculine deity 
in their almost exclusive adoration of 
Jesus. 

The Shakers also are worshipers of 
the feminine element in their adoration 
of Ann Lee. 

THE HINDU TRINITY. 

All developed religions are essentially 
monotheistic. However numerous may 
be the celestial hierarchy in any cult, 



30 THE HINDU TRINITY. 

it is sure to contain the ultimate idea 
of a single supreme power — the source 
and completion of all other powers and 
the object of the worshiper's highest 
reverence. It is the expression of the 
various ideas respecting God that gives 
to each cult the appearance of polythe- 
ism. The stronger the force of imag- 
ination in a race or people, the greater 
will be the tendency to personification 
and allegory in the description of natu- 
ral phenomena and the establishment of 
religious theories, and the division of 
doctrines into esoteric and exoteric in- 
creases the mystification. 

In India, the Divine Unity is wor- 
shiped in Brahma, who is never repre- 
sented by images or symbols. 

The Hindu Trinity, Brahma, Vishnu, 
and Siva, the intellectual transfiguration 
of the triple phallus, are not only mas- 
culine personifications, supplemented by 



KRISHNA. 



3i 



the feminine element — they also stand re- 
spectively for power, wisdom, justice; cre- 
ation, preservation, destruction (or change) ; 
matter, spirit, time; the past, the pres- 
ent, the future; earth, water, fire. 

Of these deities Brahma is scarcely 
regarded, his work having been accom- 
plished in the creation of matter. 

The religious world of India is at 
present divided into two sects, the wor- 
shipers of Vishnu and the worshipers of 
Siva, Vishnu being the prevailing deity, 
as he possesses the attributes of Siva, 
while the followers of Krishna and of 
Buddha really worship Vishnu in his 
incarnations. 

KRISHNA. 

Krishna, the eighth and most com- 
plete incarnation of Vishnu, is the favor- 
ite deity of the Hindus. His mother 



3 2 



KRISHNA. 



was Devaki, a woman of superhuman 
purity, wife of Vasudeva and sister of 
Kausa, the Rajah of Mathura. A prophet 
having foretold that the infant would 
eventually usurp the throne, the Rajah 
sought to destroy him at his birth, and, 
failing to find him, issued a decree com- 
manding all the children of the same 
age throughout the kingdom to be slain. 
The gods having interfered to preserve 
the prince, he was secretly carried be- 
yond the boundaries and left in the care 
of friendly shepherds until he grew up, 
when he fulfilled the prophecy by de- 
stroying his uncle. He afterward became 
a famous warrior, and through super- 
natural gifts was constantly victorious 
over his enemies. One of his most re- 
markable exploits was the slaying of a 
terrible serpent by crushing its head 
with his foot. In some pictures he is 
represented as treading upon the neck 
of a serpent, whose head is uplifted in 
an attempt to bite its destroyer's heel. 



KRISHNA. 



33 



At a later period Krishna is repre- 
sented as the Supreme God. In human 
disguise he mingled with the people, 
doing good to all and teaching by par- 
able and precept the purest morality to 
the crowds that followed him. 

But besides his more simple instruc- 
tions to the poor and the ignorant, 
Krishna expounded the doctrines of an 
abstruse philosophy to his favorite com- 
panion and disciple Arjuna, before whom 
he was also transfigured, appearing in 
the splendor of his divine majesty, where- 
by Arjuna was overwhelmed with awe 
and implored his Master to resume his 
human shape. 

The legends concerning Krishna are 
endless in number and extremely diverse 
in character. 

At his birth he was saluted by a 
choir of angels; his body illuminated 
the dungeon in which he was born. 
3 



34 



KRISHNA. 



In reference to his early pastoral life, 
and to his later career of beneficence, 
he was called the Good Shepherd. He 
cured a leper by his miraculous power. 
A sorrowful woman emptied a box of 
precious ointment upon his head, and he 
rewarded the reverential act by the re- 
moval of her sterility. 

There are various accounts of Krishna's 
death. One legend asserts that, while 
performing his religious duties upon the 
banks of the Ganges, he was shot by 
a hunter, who mistook him for a deer; 
another, that he was transfixed to a tree 
by the arrow of an enemy; another, 
that he was crucified. He is spoken of 
as absorbed at once into the Eternal 
Essence, and also as having descended 
into hell and afterward ascended into 
heaven . 

At Mathura he has a temple built in 
the form of a cross. He is painted as 



KRISHNA. 



35 



Vishnu, crucified, with a Parthian coro- 
net around his head. There are many 
pictures of him at Wittoba. Some of 
these have the stigmata in the hands, 
others in the feet; one has a collar 
around the neck with a heart suspended 
from it, a hole in the side of the fig- 
ure and upon the head a phallic sign. 
Another picture represents him strug- 
gling with a seven-headed serpent. 

It is probable that Krishna is the 
sun. His name, which is usually trans- 
lated black, means also dark blue', which 
might imply the god of the air (or 
sky), and of the sun, as the chief ob- 
ject in the heavens. 

It is possible that the heroic deeds 
or exceptional goodness of some one 
man is the nucleus of this stupendous 
myth; but more probable that the power 
and beneficent influences of the sun are 
thus indicated. There are, in fact, pict- 



3 6 



KRISHNA. 



ures of Krishna as the sun, with his 
favorite wife Radha, as the moon, be- 
side him, while a circle of youths and 
maidens, representing the zodiac, dance 
around the pair to the music of Krish- 
na's flute. 

The licentious stories of the loves of 
Krishna are undoubtedly allegorical, and 
the impure worship which has resulted 
from their literal acceptation is no re- 
proach to their original intent. The real 
idea of these fanciful compositions is 
the reciprocal attraction between divine 
goodness and the human soul, and there 
is no more inconsistency between the 
language and its figurative meaning than 
between the luscious descriptions of Sol- 
omon's Song and the pious rendering 
given them by commentators. 

The representation of Krishna as cru- 
cified would seem to imply his identifi- 
cation with the sun. The Romans rev- 



KRISHNA. 



37 



erenced a crucified incarnation of the 
god Sol, and many ancient Italian pic- 
tures of Jesus as a crucified Saviour bear 
the inscription, Deo soli, which signifies 
"to the only God," and "to the God 
Sol." 

A votive offering to the Assyrian Sun- 
God represents a man surrounded by a 
wreath of beams, with outstretched arms, 
each hand containing a branch, thus 
forming a perfect cross. The inscrip- 
tion is : " Domino Baali, Solari Regi, ester- 
no qui cxaudivit preces." "To the Lord 
Baal, the Solar King, eternal, who has 
heard prayers." 

In some aspects of his character Krish- 
na resembles Apollo, in others Hercules, 
both representations of the sun ; while it 
is obvious that there is still a more strik- 
ing likeness between this incarnation of 
Vishnu and the second person of the 
Christian Trinity, called by his worship- 
ers "the Sun of Righteousness." 



3§ 



KRISHNA. 



It is impossible that the heathen myths, 
which so closely resemble those of Juda- 
ism and Christianity, can have been bor- 
rowed from the Jewish Scriptures and 
the New Testament. The internal evi- 
dence of the oldest Hebrew books proves 
them to have been written within less 
than a thousand years before the Chris- 
tian era, and history shows that India, 
Persia, Assyria, and Greece were highly 
civilized nations, possessing a developed 
religion and great treasures in literature 
and art, before the Jews had emerged 
from the ignorance of barbarism. 

Equally futile is the attempt of many 
Christian scholars to explain the remark- 
able coincidences between the legends of 
Krishna and of Christ upon the suppo- 
sition that the story of Krishna as a 
hero in the Puranas, and a£ a divine 
teacher in the Bhagavad-Gita, are a modi- 
fication of the story of Christ resulting 
from intercourse between India and Asia 



THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES. 39 

Minor during the early centuries of the 
Christian era. 

The Mahabharata and the Puranas are 
compilations from works written by dif- 
erent authors at different periods ; but 
those works themselves were largely com- 
posed of extremely ancient legends, and 
unprejudiced scholars consider the latest 
revision of the compilations to have 
taken place some time during the last 
two or three centuries before the Chris- 
tian era, the development of the legends 
concerning Krishna being due to the 
efforts of the Brahmans to counteract 
the rapidly-increasing influence of Buddh- 
istic philosophy. 

THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES. 
The Hebrews were never an important 
or powerful nation. Originally a collec- 
tion of small Phoenician tribes, they be- 
came consolidated into a petty kingdom 
in the time of Samuel. 



40 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES. 

Although the Jewish Scriptures contain 
elaborate accounts of the glory of the 
nation, especially during the successive 
reigns of David and Solomon, these state- 
ments are not corroborated by any other 
evidence. On the contrary, the Jews as a 
people were so insignificant that their very 
existence was unknown to, or ignored by, 
the great nations of antiquity. Homer 
does not mention the Jews, although 
the Homeric writings were nearly con- 
temporary with the reign of Solomon, 
and Herodotus is equally silent, although 
his works show great familiarity with 
Assyrian and Egyptian history. 

As the Jewish territory was very small, 
and Jerusalem, even if densely peopled, 
was not large enough to contain more 
than from twenty-five to thirty thousand 
inhabitants, it is plain that ihe Scrip- 
ture statements as to the population of 
the country and the size of its armies 
are gross exaggerations. 



THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES. 41 

The language and legends of the He- 
brews show an admixture of Phoenician, 
Syrian, Chaldean, Assyrian, and Greek 
influence. 

The Hebrews, like other ancient na- 
tions, applied sexual ideas to their dei- 
ties and worshiped the sun; although 
among them, as among other peoples, 
there were enlightened souls, capable of 
accepting a monotheistic religion. 

The worship of Jah, or Jehovah, was 
not introduced among the Jews until 
after the return of David from his long 
sojourn in Phoenicia. The word is sim- 
ilar to the sacred name in use among 
the Syrians, Assyrians, Babylonians, and 
Greeks, and is traceable, as is every- 
thing else that concerns religion, to India. 

The cult of Jehovah (or, more prop- 
erly, Jahveh) was, in its earlier stages, 
a cruel and bloody worship, demanding 
frequent sacrifices of both men and 



42 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES. 

beasts. Victory was invoked before a 
battle, and celebrated after a successful 
campaign, by the immolation of human 
victims. Even the High Priest sacrificed 
himself whenever a national emergency 
appeared to require an offering of es- 
pecial value. 

There is every reason to suppose that 
Aaron was sacrificed on Mount Hor, in 
order to ensure success to the Israelites 
in their invasion of Palestine, the act 
being performed by his son. who came 
down from the mountain wearing his fa- 
ther's official dress. Moses suffered the 
same fate on Mount Pisgah, when he 
was gathered to his people as Aaron 
his brother was gathered, his eye not 
being dim nor his natural force abated. 

The words "God" and "Lord," in the 
Christian versions of the Jewish Script- 
ures, are not correctly translated from 
the original. 

The narrative portion of Genesis bears 



THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES. 43 

evidence of two distinct sources of au- 
thorship. One form of the story uses 
Elohim and the other Jehovah for its 
Deus ex machina. 

The Elohistic story was probably writ- 
ten in Babylon when El was the chief 
deity, the Jehovistic in Judea, during 
the prevalence of the worship of Jeho- 
vah. Both narratives appear to be of 
later origin than the historical and pro- 
phetic parts of the Old Testament. 

The story of the Creation, of the Fall, 
of Noah and the flood, probably had 
their source in India, and followed the 
course of emigration from that parent 
land. The Hebrew version of the Crea- 
tion resembles most closely the Persian 
myth upon the same subject. The ac- 
count of the Fall is, throughout, un- 
questionably phallic. The serpent, the 
tree, the fruit, as associated with the 
man and woman, are a figurative decla- 
ration of sexual union; the names Adam 



44 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES. 

and Eve suggest the same idea, and the 
story means that, so long as the repre- 
sentatives of the two sexes remained 
separate, each was happy and blest, 
while their coming together was the be- 
ginning of pain and sorrow to one and 
of toil and care to the other. 

There is no evidence of there ever 
having been a universal flood; but some 
one local flood in the East was so ex- 
tensive as to have been handed down 
in tradition until it took the form of a 
chronicle, varying in each nation accord- 
ing to the modes of thought of its in- 
habitants. 

The Hebrew story appears to be a 
garbled version of the Assyrian legend, 
wherein Sisithrua and his ship are saved 
from the deluge by the god Nuah. Nuah 
was the Assyrian name for Ea, the All- 
pervading Intelligence, and, according to 
the rabbis, corresponds to the Chaldeo- 
Assyrian god Nisroch. 



THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES. 45 

In the Bible story, Nuah appears as 
the rescued patriarch. 

Abraham is most probably a mythical 
character. In the mind of the compiler 
of Genesis, it was as necessary to fur- 
nish a " federal head " for the Hebrew- 
nation as for the human race, and the 
names Abraham and Sarah are only an- 
other form for the same idea as that 
contained, in Adam and Eve ; that is, 
the idea of generation. This play upon 
words is resorted to again in the story 
of Jacob, the father of the children of 
Israel. 

Although Abraham speaks of God as 
Jehovah, yet God tells Moses that he 
was not known by that name to Abra- 
ham. 

The covenant of circumcision is said 
to have been made by God with Abra- 
ham, and yet there is no legislation 



46 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES. 

concerning that rite in Exodus, Num- 
bers, and Leviticus; and Moses did not 
enforce it in his own family, nor among 
the Israelites in the Wilderness. 

The readiness of Abraham to offer 
up Isaac, of which so much is made 
by Christian teachers, signifies nothing 
more than that Abraham was an ad- 
herent of a cult which demanded human 
sacrifice to appease a cruel deity. Sim- 
ilar legends are related of King Haris- 
chandra in the Aitareya-Brahmana and 
of King Ambarisha in the Ramayana. 
The Hebrew and Indian traditions have 
the same import, and imply the preva- 
lence of the same bloody rites. 

In the story of Abraham, as in many 
other legends of the Bible, it is possible 
that the character and career of some 
individual was the basis of religious al- 
legory, and still more probable that, as 
in the creation of romances throughout 



THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES. 47 

all historic time, the traits and experi- 
ences of many individuals were mingled 
to form new characters and circum- 
stances in illustration of the ideas to 
be conveyed, or the principles to be en- 
forced. 

There is no proof that the Hebrews 
were ever enslaved in Egypt. The Egyp- 
tian monuments, so far as they have 
been deciphered, contain no mention of 
such a people, nor are there any traces 
of Egyptian influence in the language, 
customs, or religion of the early Hebrews. 

The story of the birth of Moses and 
his rescue from an ark, or floating cra- 
dle, has its parallel in the myth of 
Romulus and in the sculptured story 
of Sargina, an Assyrian king. 

Neither Saul, nor David, nor Solomon 
appears to have known anything of 
Moses, or of the code of laws supposed 



48 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES 

to have been written by him. Those 
laws were only a reflection of the laws 
and customs of older and more impor- 
tant nations, modified to suit the char- 
acter and circumstances of the Jews. 

The Pentateuch is evidently a compil- 
ation by various persons. It was made 
up in part out of old poetry. For ex- 
ample, the passage of the Red Sea was 
literalized from the poem called " The Song 
of Moses," and the miracle of the sun 
and moon standing still originated in a 
rapturous ejaculation found in the book 
of Jasher. 

It is not probable that any portion of 
the Jewish Scriptures was in existence 
earlier than the seventh century before 
the Christian era, and the books usually 
considered the oldest are of much more 
recent origin than that period. 

The division of time into weeks did 



THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES. 49 

not obtain in Western Asia and in Eu- 
rope until about 700 B.C. ; consequently., 
all the Scripture stories founded upon, 
or having allusion to, a period of seven 
days must have been written after that 
date. 

The comparatively modern origin of 
the latter part of the patriarchial narra- 
tive is proved by the anachronisms con- 
tained in it, as well as by the Greek 
influence observable in its language and 
incidents. The use of iron, which is 
mentioned very early in the record, was 
not introduced into Judea until about 
the time of David. 

The Jews had no written law in the 
time of David, and as a people they 
knew nothing of any sacred books until 
after the Babylonian captivity. 

The resemblance to each other in lan- 
guage and style of the books of the 
4 



5© THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES. 

Old Testament is so striking as to de 

monstrate that they must all have been 

written within a comparatively short pe- 
riod of time. 

The sacred Name revealed to Moses 
in the bush was not known to the Jews 
until after the return of David from his 
sojourn among the Phoenicians. 

Genesis was written after the custom 
of circumcision had been adopted by the 
Jews. 

The law in Exodus, Numbers, and 
Leviticus was written before the Jews 
had learned the rite of circumcision, or 
after it had become so general that no 
legislation respecting its enforcement was 
necessary. 

Deuteronomy was written after the 
practice of circumcision had become gen- 
eral. The internal evidence of this book 



THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES. 51 



points to the prophet Jeremiah as its au- 
thor. It is probably that " Book of the 
Law " which was found in the Temple 
during the reign of Josiah. 

The Pentateuch, Joshua, Joel, Obadiah, 
Amos, and Micah were probably written 
after the sack of Jerusalem by the allied 
forces, and while the great bulk of the 
nation was in foreign captivity. 

Leviticus is of very late date. The 
institution of the Levites arose after the 
Babylonian captivity, at a time when 
the martial spirit of the Jews had been 
quelled by repeated misfortunes and their 
devotional zeal increased, in a correspond- 
ing ratio and by the same means. 

The fact that several of the prophets, 
as Samuel, David, Abijah, Elijah, Elisha 
and others, fulfilled to a great extent 
the functions of priests is a proof that 
there was not in their days a family 
set apart for that office. 



52 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES. 

Judges, Ruth, and Samuel contain no 
mention of Moses. . They were probably- 
written earlier than the Pentateuch, and 
before the story of Moses was conceived. 

The book of Chronicles was written 
after all the other books of the Old 
Testament; probably between two and 
three hundred years before the Christian 
era. Like the book of Joshua, it is of 
no historical value. 

The book of Job was written later than 
B.C. 500. Noah, Daniel, and Job were 
characters unknown to the Jews until 
after they had come in contact with the 
Greeks and babylonians. 

The description of the building of the 
tabernacles in the Wilderness implies the 
possession of materials impossible to have 
been obtained in such a place, as well as 
a knowledge of the useful and ornamen- 
tal arts entirely beyond the capacity of 



THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES. 53 



a race of newly-enfranchised brickmakers, 
whose previous hereditary employments 
had been pastoral. 

The Ark, as a piece of sacred furni- 
ture, was used by Chaldeans, Assyrians, 
Hindus, Phoenicians and Greeks. The 
original idea of the ark was phallic. 

The number seven, as a sacred num- 
ber, was not applied until after the Jews 
had mingled with the Babylonians and 
Persians. 

The language of Isaiah, Ezekiel, and 
Jeremiah respecting the Sabbath would 
seem to imply that the observance was 
of recent institution in their day, and 
that the people needed to be reminded 
of its obligations. 

The word does not occur in the Psalms, 
nor in Proverbs; and neither David nor 
Solomon observed the seventh day as a 
hallowed time. There is no evidence 



54 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES. 

that the Sabbath was ever kept by the 
whole people until after the Babylonian 
Captivity, and the excessive sanctity as- 
cribed to the day in the time of Jesus 
was an idea of gradual development. 

The Jewish Sabbath was probably a 
modification of an Assyrian feast. 

In the cuneiform inscriptions Sabatu is 
defined as a "day of rest for the heart." 
A recently-deciphered inscription records 
that "the seventh day is the festival of 
Merodach and Zirpaniter, a holy day." 
No flesh nor fruit must be eaten, no 
work done — not even sacrifice performed. 
Not even clothes changed on that day. 
The fourteenth day was consecrated to 
Beltis and Nergal, the twenty-first to the 
sun and moon, the twenty-eighth to Hea 
and Nergal as a "rest-day." The nine- 
teenth (which would be Friday, Venus' 
day) was the White Day of the goddess 
Gula. 



THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES. 55 

The seventh day, being dedicated to 
Saturn, the " Most High " among the plan- 
ets as to situation, would naturally take 
precedence as a feast-day. 

In like manner Sunday, the day dedi- 
cated to the sun, the star which excels 
all others in its influence upon the earth, 
was set apart by Constantine, himself a 
worshiper of the sun for forty years, 
in honor of the deified Christ "the Sun 
of Righteousness." 

The Passover was probably instituted 
after the return of the Jews from cap- 
tivity in Babylon, and was a modification 
of an ancient pagan feast. There are 
traces of the Passover in India. It is 
not mentioned in the Psalms, nor in 
Maccabees. It marked the vernal equinox, 
and thereby implied a knowledge of the 
zodiac. 

The Feast of Pentecost appears to 



56 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES, 

have commemorated the end of the har- 
vest. 

The Feast of Trumpets marked the 
beginning of the New Year. It was a 
Hebrew version of a pagan feast, con- 
nected with the worship of the sun: and 
the use of trumpets proves it to have 
been of late introduction among the Jews, 
as trumpets were invented by the Etrus- 
cans about B.C. 800, and did not become 
common until about B.C. 500. 

The Feast of Tabernacles was con- 
nected with the autumnal equinox, and 
was originally phallic in its signification. 

The Day of Atonement was instituted 
after the Babylonian Captivity, at a time 
when the ideas of confession, pardon, and 
atonement, which were not recognized by 
the * early law, had become prevalent 
through the influence of the Talmudic 
writings. 



THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES. 57 

The book of Psalms is a compilation of 
Hebrew poems by various authors. Some 
of these compositions are very ancient; 
others were written at a late period in 
Jewish history. They show for the most 
part a very low conception of Deity and 
a very narrow and vindictive spirit to- 
ward men. Only a few of them can, with 
probability, be ascribed to David. The 
recent decipherment of cuneiform texts 
has clearly shown that many of them are 
of Babylonian origin. 

The Proverbs and other writings attrib- 
uted to Solomon are a collection of the 
wit and wisdom of his day, to which he 
not unlikely contributed a share. 

The Prophets of the Old Testament 
must be regarded in the same light with 
the seers and sages of all nations in 
all ages. Some of them were keen ob- 
servers, foretelling wisely the result of 
good or bad management in political 



5 8 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES. 

affairs; others were religious enthusiasts, 
gifted with an eloquent tongue or a 
fiery pen; others, again, were fanatics, 
uncultivated in mind and apparently dis- 
solute in morals. All of them were ani- 
mated with the bloodthirsty and revenge- 
ful spirit of their race, and limited to 
the narrow and exclusive policy of their 
nation. 

There is no evidence of superhuman 
wisdom in the Hebrew prophecies when 
we consider them in relation to the cir- 
cumstances under which they were com- 
posed, and refrain from forcing a double 
interpretation of their poetical expres- 
sions. 

Isaiah is the work of at least two au- 
thors. The prophecies contained in the 
second chapter never have been and never 
can be fulfilled. Like so many other 
fervid outpourings of that poet, they are 
only the expression of his patriotic long- 



THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES. 59 

ing to see his country free and prosper- 
ous and righteous. 

In the fourteenth verse of the sev- 
enth chapter, the prophet, wishing to pre- 
vent the formation of a treaty between 
Judea and Assyria against Syria and Is- 
rael, assures Ahaz that within the time 
necessary to elapse between conception 
and birth — that is, within nine months — 
his kingdom shall be delivered from his 
enemies. The ninth chapter points in all 
probability to the child Hezekiah — at any 
rate, to a coming saviour, who should break 
the oppressive yoke of the Assyrian power. 

In the passages which are considered 
especially Messianic, and which were writ- 
ten by the second Isaiah, the Jewish Church 
is personified as Israel, and its deliver- 
ance from Babylon foretold. 

The seventy-second Psalm predicts the 
reign of a future glorious King of Judah, 
but has no application to the career of 
Jesus. 



6o THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES.. 

Ezekiel and Micah speak of the Mes- 
siah as coming from Bethlehem, and as 
being David himself, or a spiritual David, 
and Isaiah calls him a rod out of the 
stem of Jesse ; whereas Jesus was a Naza- 
rene, and was not descended from David, 
unless Joseph was his father ; nor even then 
can the incorrect and contradictory gene- 
alogies of Matthew and Luke be accepted 
as an authentic record of his paternal 
ancestors. 

The thirty-seventh chapter of Ezekiel 
will not admit of any other than a local 
and literal interpretation. 

The whole book of Daniel is probably 
spurious. The ninth chapter, so impor- 
tant to Christian dogma, is falsely trans- 
lated in the English version, conveys a 
different signification in the Greek, and 
is totally rejected by German critics. 

In the seventh chapter of Daniel the 
coming of the Son of Man follows the 
breaking up of the Syrian monarchy. 



THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES. 61 

Zechariah, in his mention of the Branch, 
refers only to Joshua, the son of Josa- 
dech, as is plainly to be seen from the 
subsequent narrative. 

The ninth verse of the ninth chapter 
of Zechariah is a political prophecy re- 
lating to contemporaneous events, and has 
no resemblance to the life of Jesus, ex- 
cepting in the riding on an ass, which, 
in the prophetic words, implied the fol- 
lowing of peace rather than of war. 

The Messiah of Micah was a future 
deliverer of Israel from the Assyrians. 

The passage in Job which is to Chris- 
tians one of the strongest proofs of the 
divinity of Christ and of the immor- 
tality of the soul — 

" / know that my Redeemer liveth, and that 
He shall stand at the latter day upon the 
ear tli; and though after my skin worms de- 
stroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see 



62 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES. 

God; whom I shall see for myself, and mine 
eyes shall behold, and not another;" 

is a false translation, from beginning to 
end. 

In the correct versions of the original 
Hebrew, the word God does not occur; 
and what Job really said, and all that 
he really meant, was that, although while 
living he had been misunderstood and 
calumniated, yet he felt sure that the 
time would come, perhaps long after he 
should have turned to dust, when some 
one would rise to vindicate his character 
and redeem his name — a natural feeling 
and a natural utterance, which has often 
been experienced and expressed both 
before and since Job's day. 

The canon of Jewish Scripture was 
determined by a synagogue of the Phari- 
sees of the Second Temple after Judea 
had become subject to the Macedonian 
empire. 



THE NEW TESTAMENT. 63 

Many of the books rejected at that 
time have since been utterly destroyed, 
in consequence of the persecution of the 
Jews by the Christians. 

THE NEW TESTAMENT. 

There is no distinct trace of any of 
the Gospels earlier than one hundred 
and fifty years after the death of Christ, 
and in all that time only once a tradi- 
tion that any of the Evangelists had 
ever composed a Gospel at all. 

This one instance is that of Matthew, 
who, according to Papias, wrote a book 
called "Oracles of our Lord." 

There is good proof that the first and 
Second Gospels were not written by Mat- 
thew and Mark. 

The Third Gospel is an avowed com- 
pilation by a person who was not an 
eye-witness of the events he describes, 
and whose identity cannot be established. 



64 THE NEW TESTAMENT. 

The author of the Fourth Gospel is 
unknown, and his work differs widely 
from the other three records. 

Not one of these Gospels claims to 
have been' divinely inspired. 

The genealogy of Matthew contradicts 
that of Luke ; neither of them is his- 
torical, and both of them are of Joseph's 
family, not Mary's. 

According to Matthew, the Angel of 
the Annunciation appeared to Joseph after 
Mary's pregnancy had begun ; according 
to Luke, he appeared to Mary before she 
had conceived. In Luke, the angel is 
called Gabriel. This developed form of 
the doctrine of angels was first observ- 
able among the Jews during the Cap- 
tivity, and was the result of the influ- 
ence of the Zend religion of the Per- 
sians upon the Jewish mind. 

The miraculous conception is not men- 



THE NEW TESTAMENT. 65 

tioned by Mark and John, and many of 
the early Christians rejected the theory 
from the beginning. 

All ancient peoples had their stories 
of supernatural births as a means of ac- 
counting for marked individual superiority. 
Plato, Pythagoras, Alexander the Great, 
the elder Scipio, and Augustus were each 
begotten by a god; and Buddha and 
Krishna were not only of divine origin, 
but the mother of each was endowed 
before birth with superhuman purity. 

The story of Jesus, from beginning 
to end, bears a remarkable resemblance 
to that of Krishna, the eighth incarnation 
of Vishnu and the favorite deity of 
India — originally, in all probability, a per- 
sonification of the sun. 

There are many very ancient legends 
concerning the parentage of Jesus, and 
all of them concur in asserting that he 
5 



66 



THE NEW TESTAMENT. 



was the son of Mary before her mar- 
riage, and that his father's name was 
Panthera. 

There is no reason to suppose that 
Mary had not other children. 

There is no historical proof that Jesus 
was born in Bethlehem; on the contrary, 
the evidence is all against such a theory. 

There was no census ordered by Au- 
gustus at the time asserted, and the 
Roman law did not require the imperial 
subjects to go to their native cities to 
be taxed. 

The census was taken at the resi- 
dences and at the principal cities of 
each district. Moreover, women were not 
registered ; therefore, Mary's presence 
would not have been necessary, even if 
Joseph had been obliged to go, and noth- 
ing but necessity would have been likely 
to cause her to undertake such a jour- 
ney when far advanced in pregnancy. 



THE NEW TESTAMENT. 67 

The evident object of the Evangelist 
is to have the child born in Bethlehem, 
because Micah had prophesied that the 
Messiah should be born there. 

The story of the delivery having oc- 
curred in a stable or a cave, and of 
the child having been born in a manger, 
is probably only on the supposition that 
the taxing really took place, and that the 
village was crowded with strangers. 

The story of the Shepherds is appar- 
ently a reminiscence of the infancy of 
Krishna. 

The stories of the visit of the Magi, 
the flight into Egypt, and the Presenta- 
tion in the Temple contradict each other. 

The presentation is said to have taken 
place within the legal time, forty days 
after the birth. If so, the parents must 
have returned to Bethlehem to meet the 
Magi there. But Luke says they went 



68 THE NEW TESTAMENT. 

directly to Nazareth from Jerusalem. 
If the flight into Egypt preceded the 
presentation, it would not have been pos- 
sible for them to go and return within 
the forty days ; nor would they have ven- 
tured into Jerusalem, where Herod was. 
This theory would require the birth, the 
visit of the Magi, the massacre of the 
infants of Bethlehem, the death of Herod, 
and the journey to and from Egypt, all 
within forty days. 

The birth of Jesus is connected with 
the visit of the Magi by a participial 
construction implying that the two events 
happened consecutively. The same con- 
struction is used with regard to the 
command to flee into Egypt and the re- 
turn of the Magi from Jerusalem. 

The introduction of the Magi points 
to a Persian legend as one of the sources 
of the Jewish story. The Persian Mithra 
was born of a virgin, in a cave, on the 
twenty-fifth of December. A representa- 



THE NEW TESTAMENT. 69 

tion of the event has been discovered 
in the Roman catacombs. The mother 
holds in her lap the infant Mithra, 
whose head is encircled by a halo, and 
before them three men in Persian dress 
are kneeling and offering gifts. 

The early Christians worshiped by 
night in the catacombs, not from neces- 
sity, but because their rites were bor- 
rowed from those of Mithra, in which 
a cave was an essential feature. 

The story of the massacre of the chil- 
dren of Bethlehem by Herod is borrowed 
from a Hindu legend. 

The Rajah of Mathura, uncle of Krish- 
na, is said to have slaughtered all the 
children born in his dominions during 
the night of Krishna's birth, he having 
been forewarned by a prophet that the 
child would eventually dethrone him and 
succeed to his possessions. 

It is possible that a despotic prince 



70 THE NEW TESTAMENT. 

may have issued such a command; in- 
deed, the event was recorded in sculp- 
ture upon a temple which still exists. 

But it is impossible that Herod should 
have ventured to massacre the Empe- 
ror's subjects without an imperial order 
to that effect; and, if such a thing had 
been done, there would have been some 
mention of the deed in contemporaneous 
records. 

The story of Jesus in the Temple is 
entirely fanciful. The pupils never sat 
in the presence of the Doctors of the 
Temple. The Jews had an idea that 
genius developed as early as the twelfth 
year — that is, on the outgrowing of child- 
hood. 

The supposition that the parents of 
Jesus were conscious of his identity as 
the Messiah is overthrown by the frequent 
statement that they wondered at his con- 
duct and sayings and were unable to 
understand him. 



THE NEW TESTAMENT. 7* 

The story of the Temptation is an 
allegory, which has its parallel in the 
mythologies of other nations. 

Matthew, Mark, and Luke confine the 
ministry of Jesus to Galilee until his 
first journey to Jerusalem. 

John, on the other hand, selects Judea 
as the principal theater of his labors, and 
makes his visits to Galilee occasional and 
short. 

There is no historical foundation for 
the story of John the Baptist. 

It was a favorite notion among the 
Jews that a child born of aged parents 
previously childless was sure to be gifted 
with extraordinary powers, and destined 
to a remarkable career. 

Although John is declared to have 
been the conscious forerunner of the 
Messiah, he did not know Jesus until 
the time of the Baptism; and even dur- 



72 



THE NEW TESTAMENT. 



ing his last days in prison he was in 
doubt as to the authenticity of the Sav- 
iour's mission. 

Nothing is known of Jesus from his 
twelfth year to the time of his baptism. 
The inference from what is stated is 
that he remained in Nazareth until he 
was grown up. The Talmud asserts 
that he was taught by a member of 
the Sanhedrim, and that he afterward 
went to study in Egypt, from whence 
he brought back a knowledge of magic. 

Many scholars have doubted whether 
such a man as Jesus ever existed, and 
the doubt becomes stronger with the in- 
crease of knowledge respecting the his- 
tory and literature and religious develop- 
ments of ancient times. 

The marked resemblance between his 
story and that of Krishna, and the fact 
that he is not mentioned by any writer 
of his time (the brief sentence in Jo- 



THE NEW TESTAMENT. 73 

sephus being universally acknowledged 
an interpolation), are powerful argu- 
ments in support of such a theory. 

But, as in the case of Krishna, there 
may have been some heroic man to 
whom the sun-myths were applied by 
his contemporaries; so there seems to be 
a considerable amount of evidence in 
favor of the actual personality, at the 
time alleged, of an obscure Jew, who, 
through his fearless denunciation of the 
crying sins of his age, provoked early 
martyrdom for himself, and thereby 
strengthened the deep impression which 
his life and teachings had made upon 
his countrymen. 

It is most probable that the author of 
the Fourth Gospel was a Gentile, a 
Gnostic of Alexandria or of Ephesus. 

The Gospel and Epistles of John can- 
not have been written by the author of 
the Apocalypse. 



74 THE NEW TESTAMENT. 



The external evidence in favor of the 
Apostle John as the author of the Apoc- 
alypse is stronger than can be collected 
for the authorship of any other book of 
the New Testament, excepting certain of 
the Epistles of Paul. 

In the first chapter of the Gospel of 
John, Christianity is viewed through the 
medium of the Alexandrian philosophy. 
The recognition of Jesus as the Logos was 
the idea of a later time than the days 
of the Apostles, and entirely beyond the 
comprehension of the John who followed 
Jesus. 

At the time when Gnosticism was be- 
ginning to influence Christianity, John 
would have been a very old man, where- 
as the style of the Gospel bearing his 
name possesses the fervor and freshness 
belonging to early prime. Moreover, the 
work is written in pure and elegant Greek, 
and is entirely free from Hebraistic idioms. 



THE NEW TESTAMENT. 



75 



The narrative is exceedingly artistic; 
trie events are made to harmonize with 
the theological views of the author, and 
there is scarcely a trace of the homely 
moral teaching, by parable and proverb, 
which characterizes the more simple story 
of the other three Gospels. 

The author is evidently not a Jew 
nor a native of Palestine; and his mis- 
takes respecting names, localities, and 
customs prove that he was not familiar 
with the country of the Jews, and could 
not have been an eye-witness of the 
wonders he relates. 

He always speaks of the Jews as an 
alien people. He mentions "the Feasts 
of the Jews," "the Passover of the 
Jews," and says "your law," "their 
law," in reference to the Mosaic code. 
He calls the Jews " children of the 
devil," instead of "the chosen people;" 
and, while declaring Jesus. to be the Son 



76 THE NEW TESTAMENT. 



of God, makes no allusion to his de- 
scent from David, or to the Jewish ex- 
pectation of a Messiah. 

The Fourth Gospel does not closely 
resemble the other records in its in- 
cidents. Some circumstances are omitted, 
and others altered, to suit the prevailing 
idea of the composition. 

The author mentions few miracles; but 
the most remarkable ones of all, the 
raising of Lazarus and the giving sight 
to a man born blind, are related only 
by him. 

The Paraclete is spoken of for the 
first time in the Gospel of John. 

The character of John, as portrayed 
in the Gospel bearing his name, is al- 
together different from the descriptions 
given of him in the other Gospels. In 
the former work he is shown to be of 
an eminently tender and gentle dispo- 



THE NEW TESTAMENT. 77 

sition; in the later narratives lie is 
always mentioned with his brother, and 
the only occasions on which they be- 
come conspicuous are when they draw 
upon themselves the rebuke of Jesus for 
their selfish ambition and cruel intoler- 
ance. In these records John is called 
"a son of thunder," instead of "the 
disciple whom Jesus loved," and Peter 
was in all things the leading spirit of 
the band. There is no record or tra- 
dition of early times supporting the idea 
of the pre-eminence of John in the favor 
of his Lord, as asserted in the Fourth 
Gospel. 

The author places the Crucifixion on 
the fourteenth Nisan, the day of the 
Jewish Passover, to fulfil the idea of 
Jesus as the Paschal Lamb, and makes 
the Last Supper an ordinary meal occur- 
ring on the thirteenth Nisan, the day 
before the Passover. But the synoptic 
Gospels agree in calling the supper 



78 THE WORK OF JESUS. 

which Jesus ate with his disciples the 
Feast of the Passover, and in placing 
the Crucifixion on the next day, the 
fifteenth Nisan. 

It is recorded, by many authors, that 
the Apostle John always kept the four- 
teenth Nisan as the day on which Jesus 
instituted the Christian Feast. 

THE WORK OF JESUS. 

The moral precepts of Jesus are the 
same that have been taught by the 
great moralists of all countries and all 
ages; the same that every sincere mind 
is able to learn, from the experience of 
life, without a teacher. 

A reformer is always, to some extent, 
an unpractical man. He is therefore 
able to conceive of a standard of purity 
and generosity beyond the attainment of 
most mortals, although in harmony with 
their highest aspirations. 



THE WORK OF JESUS. 



79 



This is the secret of a reformer's 
power, that he does not teach a new 
idea, but only arouses a sentiment which 
is common to the whole race, although 
dormant or stifled in the majority. 

In estimating the work of Jesus, his 
alleged miracles must be left out of the 
account. 

Miracles have never occurred, excepting 
among ignorant and superstitious people. 

It is possible that Jesus possessed re- 
markable magnetic power as. a healer of 
diseases, and very probable that he had 
acquired medical knowledge and skill in 
preparing for his mission; but the sto- 
ries of his cures are so fabulous that 
they have no historical value under any 
interpretation. 

According to the Gospels, Jesus be- 
lieved and taught that the end of the 
world would come before the generation 



80 THE WORK OF JESUS. 

which heard him should pass away, and 
that he should then reappear upon the 
earth as the Judge of quick and dead. 
But there is some reason to believe that 
all such expressions belong to a prophecy 
later than his time. 

It is probable that many of the ex- 
hortations to the followers of Jesus to 
remain faithful under persecution, and 
to reject false Christs, were written by 
Christians of the second century, to 
strengthen their brethren against the 
pretensions of a certain Jew called Bar 
Cochba (the son of the star), who called 
himself and was believed by many of 
the Jews to be the Messiah, and who 
during the reign of Hadrian (A,D. 131- 
135) attempted to deliver his nation 
from the Roman yoke. His theory 
seems the more reasonable^ from the 
fact that " the abomination of desolation 
standing in the holy place" can only 
refer to a temple of Jupiter containing 



THE WORK OF JESUS. 81 

an image of that deity which was 
erected by Hadrian upon the site of 
the Jewish Temple. 

So far as the reputation of Jesus as 
an Omniscient Being, or even as an 
accurate scholar, is concerned, it would 
be better to accept a like explanation 
of the historical allusion in Matthew 
xxiii, 35. 

Zacharias, son of Berachias, was the 
prophet Zechariah ; but there is no evi- 
dence that he suffered martyrdom, and, 
if he did, he was not the last of the 
martyrs. It does not help the matter 
to say, as many commentators have said, 
that Jesus confounded Zechariah, son of 
Jehoida, with the prophet, and supposed 
him to be the last prophet, because 
Chronicles was the last book in the 
Hebrew Scriptures. 

But there was a Zacharias, son of 
Baruchus, who, as Josephus relates, was 

martyred within the courts of the Tem- 

6 



82 THE WORK OF JESUS. 



pie, during the siege of Jerusalem by- 
Titus, about forty years after the cru- 
cifixion. 

Another curious instance of incorrect 
quotation attributed to Jesus is when 
he justifies his claim to be the Son of 
God by repeating a part of the sixth 
verse of the eighty-second Psalm: "I 
said ye are gods," which has reference 
to the judges of the people, and cannot, 
even by the utmost ingenuity of theolog- 
ical interpretation, be applied as an ar- 
gument in favor of the Messiahship of 
Jesus. 

Whether it be true or not that as 
Jesus progressed in his career he be- 
came visionary and fanatical, as the 
words and deeds ascribed to him would 
seem to prove, it is certain - that the 
value of his work consists in the pure 
morality which he enforced by his pre- 
cepts and illustrated by his example. 



CHRISTIANITY. 



83 



It is no lessening of his fame to say 
that Krishna and Buddha and Zarathus- 
tra and Confucius, and other moral re- 
formers have rendered a like service to 
mankind, each in his own time and way; 
or to admit that many of the opinions 
of Jesus, being the outgrowth of his 
age and nationality, cannot influence the 
wider development and more complicated 
social philosophy of modern civilization. 

CHRISTIANITY. 

Jesus left no writings. He did not 
formulate any creed, nor develop any 
plan for the regulation of either church 
or state. 

The religion professedly built upon his 
teachings was a mixture of Pauline Chris- 
tianity, Grecian philosophy, and Buddhis- 
tic spiritualism, tinctured with many su- 
perstitions of the old Jewish faith. 



84 



CHRISTIANITY. 



The domestic dogmas, so to speak, of 
theology were of gradual development. 
Paul ignores completely the circumstances 
of Christ's earthly life, considering him 
in his divine character only, and accept- 
ing the resurrection as a fact because 
it favors his own theory of redemption. 

It was not until the fifth century after 
Christ that Mary began to be called the 
"Mother of God," and the innovation 
was opposed by many Christians, until 
a council of bishops confirmed the new 
dogma. 

During the sixth century, the doctrine 
of her bodily ascension into heaven be- 
came a definite article of faith. Gregory 
of Tours gives a detailed account of 
her assumption, and describes the man- 
ner in which the Lord went - to meet 
her with a retinue of angels, and or- 
dered her holy body to be conveyed on 
a cloud to Paradise; 



CHRISTIANITY. 



85 



" Adstitit Dominus susceptumque corpus sanc- 
tum in nube deferri jussit in Paradisum." 

The Virgin and Child was an object 
of reverence in every religion. The 
original idea is generation, and the 
group symbolizes the reproductive pow- 
ers of Nature. There are representa- 
tions of Krishna, nursed by his mother 
Devaki, and of Horus upon the lap of 
Isis, which, with a little alteration in 
the matter of costume, would answer 
equally well for the Jewish Mary and 
her son Jesus. 

The Sophia of the Gnostics was a Greek 
form of the same idea, and to the ini- 
tiated the name implied a great deal 
more than the personification of wisdom. 

Many other superstitions, with their ap- 
propriate symbols and ceremonies, were 
naturally and easily incorporated into the 
new cult from more ancient systems. 



86 



CHRISTIANITY. 



Antioch, where the first Gentile Chris- 
tian church was established, was a cen- 
tral ground for the scholars of Europe 
and Asia; and Rome, Ephesus and Alex- 
andria were visited by travelers from 
all parts of the known world, including 
India. The Jewish Christians remained 
faithful to many of their old Hebrew 
traditions and customs, while the Gen- 
tile converts were naturally disposed to 
introduce their earlier beliefs into the 
new faith. 

Baptism is a natural and universal 
symbol of cleansing from sin, and has 
been the initiatory rite in almost all 
religions. Water was considered by the 
ancients as the generative force which 
produces the fertility of the earth, and 
was therefore adopted as the symbol of 
regeneration. 

The Lord's Supper, or Eucharist, is a 
symbol, and in so far a survival, of 



CHRISTIANITY. 



87 



human sacrifices. There is good reason 
to believe that the Jews in very early 
times, and until the building of the 
first Temple, not only sacrificed their 
first-born at the Passover, but ate the 
sacrifice. 

From the beginning of the Temple- 
service until the Captivity, a lamb was 
substituted for the first-born, although 
in the Temple a human victim was sac- 
rificed, whose blood was mixed with the 
Paschal bread. 

The service of the second Temple re- 
quired only a lamb for the Passover, 
and the bread was made without blood, 
although human blood was still consid- 
ered the most complete expiation for sin. 

The injunctions contained in the 
Avesta, " Eat ye this meat (myazda) , ye 
who through piety and purity are worthy 
of it;" " / am the pure Saoma who averts 
death; entreat me, eat me, praise me with 
hymns" correspond very closely to what 



88 



CHRISTIANITY. 



Jesus says of himself as the bread of 
life, and his remarks to his disciples at 
the Last Supper. From the ancient 
Saoma worship are derived the Darun 
and Afringan ceremonies of the Parsis, 
which bear a striking resemblance to the 
Christian communion. The Darun (Dron) 
ceremony consists in the distribution and 
eating of small, round cakes of unleav- 
ened bread; the Afringan ceremony, 
which follows the Darun, consists in the 
distribution of consecrated wine and 
fruits. These ceremonies are probably 
modifications of the very sacred hom-r&Q. 
called Yazishu (i.e., Yasna worship), itself 
a remnant of the Vedic Soma-sacrifice. 

The cross was an important image in 
all ancient religions. Originally a phal- 
lic symbol, its tragical associations began 
with the sacrificial crucifixion of human 
beings to the sun-god. Among the 
Jews, only such victims were crucified 
alive; although the dead bodies of exe- 



CHRISTIANITY. 



89 



cuted criminals were sometimes exposed 
upon the cross to public view. 

When Moses stood with outstretched 
arms above the contending armies of 
Israel and Amalek, he assumed the at- 
titude of a crucified sacrifice to the sun, 
and through this allegorical offering of 
himself obtained victory for his people. 

It would be well for Christians to 
lay more stress upon the moral teach- 
ings mingled with the Gospel story of 
Christ, and less upon the supposed ben- 
efits accruing from his death; because it 
is doubtful whether the crucifixion ever 
took place, and, even if it were a fact, 
Christ's death upon the cross was not 
nearly so painful as that of many a 
martyr since his time. And as for the 
mental agony of an incarnate God, who, 
seeing the end from the beginning, vol- 
untarily submitted to temporary defeat 
at the hands of beings whom he had 



90 



CHRISTIANITY. 



created and should finally judge, being 
consoled the while by the joys of heav- 
enly sovereignty, both in retrospection 
and in anticipation, surely the sufferings 
of such a one are not to be compared 
with those of a mere man whose phys- 
ical tortures are made doubly cruel by 
doubts as to the worth of the cause for 
which he has lost everything, and by 
utter ignorance of any future beyond 
this life. 

The Christian monogram IHS is de- 
rived from the three Greek letters rep- 
resenting the number 608, and answering 
to the Coptic numerals expressing the 
same quantity, which in both cases con- 
stituted an enigmatical name for the sun, 
or Bacchus. 

The adoption of the fish as a symbol 
of Christ shows that Christianity in its 
earliest stages was imbued with pagan 
ideas. The fish, being a remarkably 



CHRISTIANITY. 



91 



prolific animal, was deified by ancient 
worshipers of the generative force, and 
hence became associated with Isis, Ve- 
nus, and other goddesses of maternity. 
Friday being sacred to Venus and other 
queens of sexual love, fish was the ap- 
pointed food for that day. 

The word Trinity is not in the New 
Testament, nor can the idea be dis- 
tinctly traced in either the Epistles or 
the Gospels. The Christian Trinity is only 
an idealization of a physiological fact, 
the modern rendering of an ancient myth. 

The divinity of Christ cannot be 
proved from the first three Gospels. 
The Fourth Gospel was written by a 
zealous upholder of the doctrine which, 
however, did not obtain recognition un- 
til fifty years after the crucifixion. 



Arius taught that Jesus was a crea- 
ture of different substance from the 



9 2 



CHRISTIANITY. 



Father, and having an origin of exist- 
ence in time. 

The semi - Arians believed that Jesus 
had a beginning of existence, but de- 
nied that he was of different substance 
from the Father. 

The creed called Athanasian (though 
Athanasius never saw it, it having been 
written long after he was dead) con- 
demned the Arian heresy, but ignored 
altogether the theory of the semi-Arians. 

The system of worship of the Ro- 
mish Church is almost an exact re- 
production of that which existed for 
centuries before the Christian era, and 
still exists in the Buddhist temples of 
Tartary and Thibet. 

The Grand Lama (to whom the Pope 
corresponds) is elected by priests of a 
certain order. The creed professes be- 
lief in God, in the Trinity, in Heaven, 
Hell, and Purgatory. The service in- 



CHRISTIANITY. 



93 



eludes the offering of bread and wine, 
the practice of extreme unction, the 
blessing of marriage, the honoring of 
relics, prayer for the sick, sacrifices for 
the dead, processions, flagellations, fast- 
ings, giving of alms, confession, the 
use of crosses, rosaries, and holy water. 
Bishops are consecrated for the higher 
offices, and missionaries are sent out to 
make proselytes. 

Celibacy, monasticism, asceticism, the 
telling of beads, and many other super- 
stitious practices are of Hindu origin, 
and were common in Egypt and Greece 
before their adoption into Christianity. 

The idea of the Immaculate Concep- 
tion is of Indian origin. When a deity 
was to be incarnated, he was conceived 
by the celestial virgin in the body of a 
woman, and the woman chosen to this 
mysterious honor must herself have been 
born of a pure virgin, in order that the 



94 



CHRISTIANITY. 



celestial mother should not be defiled 
by human contact. 

It is sometimes asserted that the strik- 
ing resemblance between the ceremonies 
of the Buddhist and Romish churches 
is due to the early promulgation of 
Christianity in India by the apostles 
and their immediate successors. But 
Buddhism was a developed religion 
hundreds of years before the birth of 
Christ, and the elaborate worship of 
the Roman Catholic Church was not 
known to the early believers who en- 
tered India. Nestorius and his followers 
fled to Asia to escape persecution after 
their refusal to acknowledge Mary as the 
Mother of God, and the descendants of 
these fugitives still remain in Malabar, 
where they are known as Nazarenes. It 
has been thought that the apostle Thomas 
traveled as far as India, because there 
is a tomb there dedicated to St. Thomas 
and a sect called Christians of St, Thomas; 



CHRISTIANITY. 



95 



but it is more probable that the person 
alluded to was a Nestorian missionary. 
The rites of this sect are very simple. 
Their priests marry, and there are no 
mdnasteries among them. They have 
the cross, but no pictures nor images. 
Even if Thomas the Apostle had trav- 
eled in India, he could not have in- 
troduced the customs of the Romish 
Church, for they did not exist in his 
time; nor. could the Nestorians have 
introduced them, for that sect was cut 
off from the Church early in the fifth 
century, whereas the first monastery in 
Christendom was established by St. Ben- 
edict in the sixth century, and rosaries 
were of still later adoption. 

There is no command in the New 
Testament for the observance of Sunday. 
The early Christians met on the first 
day of the week; but the custom was 
not enforced upon the Church as a re- 
ligious duty. Constantine, who for the 



9 6 



CHRISTIANITY. 



greater part of his life was a wor- 
shiper of Apollo, established Sunday as 
a Christian festival. It was really in 
honor of this solar deity that, A.D. 321, 
Constantine published a decree prohibit- 
ing manual labor, and the transaction of 
public business "on the venerable day 
of the sun " — venerabili die solis — a divinity 
that was always held in great reverence 
by him, and seems to have embodied 
his highest conception of the Supreme 
Being. Indeed, it is a curious and sig- 
nificant fact that at the very time when 
this first Christian emperor was engaged 
in convoking councils, deciding dogmatic 
controversies, and regulating ecclesiastical 
affairs, the image of the sun-god still 
retained its place on the reverse of the 
imperial coins, and was only gradually, 
and, as it were, clandestinely superseded 
by the monogram of Christ - and other 
distinctively Christian types and symbols, 
about the middle of the fourth century, or 
thirteen years after Constan tine's death, 



CHRISTIANITY. 



97 



The twenty-fifth, of December was the 
birthday of the Persian sun-god Mithra, 
and was also celebrated by the Romans 
as dies natalis solis invicti, the natal 
day of the unconquered sun. The same 
day was in fact a festival of many an- 
cient nations on the return of the sun 
from the winter solstice, and was 
adopted by Christians as the birthday 
of the "sun of righteousness," the date 
of nativity of Jesus being unknown. 
By the earliest Fathers Christ was called 
Anatoli, the Sunrise; and this idea, em- 
bodied in church architecture, fixed the 
place of the chancel toward the east. 
Ritualistic orientation is a survival of 
sun-worship. 

In the fifth century, Pope Leo I found 
it necessary to censure the Christians of 
Rome, because they were in the habit of 
turning their faces to the east, and doing 
reverence to the rising sun, before enter- 
ing the church for morning service, 

7 



9 8 



CHRISTIANITY. 



Easter was originally a festival of 
the Germans in honor of Ostara, their 
goddess of nature, or the earth, and 
eggs were eaten as symbols of germi- 
nating life. The Christian Church 
adopted the feast and the emblem in 
commemoration of the resurrection to life 
of the crucified Saviour. 

The story of the crucifixion, entomb- 
ment, and resurrection of Christ corre- 
sponds to the sun-myth, and may be 
explained by the position of that lumi- 
nary at the season when those marvelous 
events are supposed to have occurred. 

The observance of All Souls' and All 
Saints' Day was borrowed from the an- 
nual ceremonies of the Romans in honor 
of their deceased ancestors. 

The priests of ancient cults, when en- 
gaged in the worship of any deity rep- 
resenting sexual mysteries, were obliged to 
wear a dress resembling that of women. 



CHRISTIANITY. 



99 



As the worship of the Romish Church 
is directed more to the Virgin than to 
the male Trinity, there is an appropri- 
ateness in the official costume of the 
priests, which is more feminine than 
masculine, and strongly suggestive, both 
in form and in ornamentation, of phal- 
lic ideas. 

In the benediction of the Romish 
Church the priest represents with his 
fingers the Trinity, or triad. It is an 
extremely ancient form, borrowed from 
the East, and originally symbolizing gen- 
eration. The Jewish priest, in separating 
three fingers and then placing his hands 
together, represented the triad and the 
unit, " the four great gods from whom 
all creation has arisen." 

The tonsure, like the pictured nimbus, 
is an emblem of the sun. 

Not only the gorgeous cathedrals of 



100 



CHRISTIANITY. 



past times, but the elaborate churches 
and chapels erected in our own days, 
bristle all over, inside and outside, with 
relics of heathen idolatry in its lowest 
and most primitive form. The shape of 
the edifice, the carvings upon its seats 
and stalls, the sacred monograms and 
symbols of its altars, the dresses of its 
priests, even the pattern of its floors 
and upholstery, are significant, not of 
regeneration in its modern, spiritual sense, 
but of generation as the most obvious 
natural force. 

The Roman Church boasts of its un- 
broken unity as the proof of its divine 
origin and the pledge of its indestruct- 
ible power. This unity, however, is only 
agreement in external forms. 

The denial of the right of private 
judgment in spiritual affairs is undoubt- 
edly a pillar of strength to delay the 
ultimate downfall of this antiquated in- 
stitution. But its grand secret of power 



CHRISTIANITY. 



101 



is the retention of the old idea of an 
altar and a sacrifice. 

The Protestant doctrine of justification 
by faith was not only a declaration of 
independence of the tyranny of Rome — 
it was also the sentence of destruction 
to all ecclesiastical organizations which 
should be attempted outside of the 
Mother Church. 

If the Romish Church be an anachro- 
nism, the Protestant Church is an ab- 
surdity. 

A Protestant meeting-house, as a con- 
venient place for the dissemination of 
useful knowledge and the inculcation of 
moral precepts, is an appropriate feature 
of civilization in its present stage of 
development; but a church without an 
altar (or with only an empty one), with 
sacraments which are no mysteries, with 
a pastor who does not pretend to any di- 
vine authority, and a congregation which 



102 



CHRISTIANITY. 



weighs and criticises every premise and 
conclusion of the pulpit, is a contradic- 
tion which every logical mind must rec- 
ognize. 

A purely spiritual faith needs no ex- 
pression in outward worship; a sensuous 
faith demands the richest and most abun- 
dant symbolism. There is, in reality, 
no half-way accommodation for these two 
opposing forces: here, as everywhere, 
compromises are either useless or fatal. 

Protestantism is an advance upon 
Catholicism, because the power of its 
clergy is limited, and the minds of its 
laity are, in some degree, left open to 
the influences of knowledge, thus increas- 
ing the probability of ultimate freedom. 

Religion — that is, intellectual beliefs re- 
specting a deity or deities and a future 
state of retribution for mankind — has not 
necessarily anything to do with morality 
— that is, the proper development of the 



CHRISTIANITY 



103 



individual, and the just fulfilment of his 
duties toward his fellows. 

Under every system of religion, it has 
been possible for men to believe firmly 
and act wickedly; and, in the long run, 
religion has hindered more than it has 
helped the progress of knowledge and 
the elevation of humanity. 

Christians are willing to acknowledge the 
truth of this position so far as it refers 
to heathen nations ; but they deny its ap- 
plication to their own creed and practice. 

It is easy to say, and to make igno- 
rant persons believe, that the superior 
progress of civilization in the Western 
hemisphere is due to the enlightening 
and purifying influences of Christianity; 
but a deeper study of the history of 
the race convinces the unprejudiced in- 
vestigator that this progress is due to 
the extension of education, and that 
Christianity, under the form of the 



CHRISTIANITY. 



Church, has always and everywhere op- 
posed innovation and reform. 

It was the study of the Latin moral- 
ists that prompted the first advance in 
spiritual doctrine during the Dark Ages. 

It was the revival of Greek learning 
in the fifteenth century that prepared 
the way for the Reformation. 

It is free learning, and not Chris- 
tianity, which has improved the race. It 
is the printer, and not the priest, who has 
sown the truth broadcast among the people. 

Christianity has always been the friend 
of superstition. 

It was due quite as much to the au- 
thority of the Scriptures as to the igno- 
rance of the people that a belief in 
witchcraft, sorcery, and magic was able 
to prevail so long throughout Christen- 
dom ; and the strong front which faith 
still opposes to knowledge is the result 
of the vast amount of superstition that 



CHRISTIANITY. 



underlies the principal dogmas of Chris- 
tianity. 

Protestants may laugh at the modern 
miracles of Catholicism; but so long as 
they themselves believe that the Virgin 
Mary was able to conceive Jesus by 
the Holy Ghost, they have no right to 
say that it is impossible for her to ap- 
pear to her worshipers in France or 
Belgium in these days. 

Physical science alone is the destroyer 
of superstition ; and every religious sys- 
tem is bad that discourages the study 
of the works of Nature, or refuses to ac- 
cept the results of scientific experiment. 

The moral advantages of Christianity 
have been greatly exaggerated by its 
partisans. The new faith exerted a 
powerful influence in the . Roman Em- 
pire, simply because it was superior to 
Roman paganism. For the same reason, 
Mohammedanism has prevailed over the 



106 CHRISTIANITY. 

inferior religions with which it has 
come in contact. But for a long time 
Christianity has been behind the best 
instincts of the age; although, so soon 
as a reform has succeeded in overcoming 
the opposition of the Church, the latter 
arrogates to itself the credit of all the 
improvements resulting from the change. 

The truth is, that Christianity, like 
other religions, is continually acted upon 
by all social, political, and moral influ- 
ences. Under an aristocratic government 
it strengthens the rich against the poor; 
in a skeptical age it places obnoxious 
doctrines in the background, and turns 
blunt statements into poetical figures; it 
is never a leading force, but is always 
led, or, rather, dragged along in the 
wake of civilization, and is therefore 
the last to perceive and enjoy the bene- 
fits of progress. 

The elevation of woman is not due to 



CHRISTIANITY. 107 

Christianity; but, first, to the respect 
awarded to the sex by Germanic senti- 
ment, and, more recently, to the respect 
which woman has been able to com- 
mand for herself, through the beneficent 
exercise of her cultivated powers. 

The early literature of India affords 
evidence that among the Hindus woman 
formerly obtained due recognition as the 
equal companion of man. 

Christianity has not been the foe of 
slavery. The Church of England per- 
mitted the government to acquire slaves 
and opposed with all its influence the 
(at first) small body of agitators who 
protested against the crime; and the 
Church of England joined with the 
Church in America to hinder the aboli- 
tion of slavery in the United States, and 
to favor the efforts of the slaveholders 
during the War of Emancipation. 

There is not a single channel of mercy 



CHRISTIANITY. 



or of benevolence that was not at first 
prepared by morality, independent of faith, 
and scarcely one that was not condemned, 
before being adopted, by the Church. 

Dissection of the human body, in the 
interests of medical science, was recom- 
mended by the religious teachers of In- 
dia, and practiced by Indian physicians 
ages before Vesalius risked persecution 
by the Christian Church for attempting 
the practical study of anatomy in Europe. 

We all know how the Scientists have 
always fared at the hands of the Church. 

Darwin is no less a martyr than was 
Galileo, so far as the reception of the 
ideas of each is concerned ; and Newton, 
Faraday, and Agassiz are honored by 
the Christian world, not so much for 
discovering new principles, as for avoid- 
ing the logical deductions from the 
premises they announced. 



CHRISTIANITY. 



Public institutions for the sick and 
crippled and idiotic and insane are a 
necessary outgrowth of large communi- 
ties and of a settled social condition. 
If the hospitals established by the Cru- 
saders at foreign and hostile ports really 
approached more nearly to the system 
of modern hospitals than did others ex- 
isting at that time and previously, it 
was the exigency of the circumstances, 
and not the superior piety of the found- 
ers and managers that caused the dif- 
ference. The amelioration in treatment 
and the improvements in accommodation 
now obtaining in all benevolent institu- 
tions are the result of increased knowl- 
edge, and were, for the most part, be- 
gun by philanthropic individuals, who 
acted from motives of humanity, and 
who encountered opposition, at every step, 
from dogmatic and official religion. 

The rapidly spreading recognition of 
the brotherhood of man is not the re- 



no 



CHRISTIANITY. 



suit of the precepts or practices of the 
Church, although the teachings of Jesus, 
in common with those of all moralists, 
have influenced the race in this direc- 
tion. The improvement is more imme- 
diately due to the universal interchange 
of ideas through facilities of travel, to 
the decline of despotisms and aristocra- 
cies through the results of mechanical 
invention, and, above all, to the general 
diffusion of knowledge by means of the 
printing-press and free schools. 

It is an incontrovertible fact that, in 
every country where dogmatic theology 
has had supreme power, civilization has 
declined. India in the Eastern hemi- 
sphere, Spain and Italy in the Western, 
are sufficient examples of this truth; and 
other nations have been hindered in 
their development precisely in, proportion 
to the degree of influence which priest- 
craft has been able to exert upon offi- 
cial government and public opinion. 



CHRISTIANITY. 



1 1 1 



An intellectual creed is necessarily 
narrowing to the intellect. In times of 
belief it stifles free thought, and forces 
minds naturally diverse in gifts to take 
a uniform shape and direction. Those 
periods in history which are most sat- 
isfactory to the churchman were, in 
reality, periods of great mental dark- 
ness and of a pitiable lack of independ- 
ence and vigor of character. 

In times of reaction from the tyranny 
of an inflexible creed, those who remain 
faithful are made unjust and cruel to- 
ward those who rebel; and, in conse- 
quence, many who have found freedom 
keep their thoughts to themselves, while 
others more bold are embittered through 
persecution, and allow their intellectual 
liberty to degenerate into the license of 
the scoffer, becoming haters of men's 
persons rather than of their ideas. 

Inasmuch as every prevailing religion 
offers temporal advantages and emolu- 



112 



CHRISTIANITY. 



ments to its adherents, there will always 
be found a multitude to profess belief for 
the sake of their own worldly interests. 

This melancholy truth was never more 
apparent than at the present day, when, 
knowledge being more extensive and 
thorough than at any former period, 
unbelief is more widespread and more 
intelligent than ever before. 

Any man of keen intellect who binds 
himself to a system of religious faith is 
in danger of becoming a hypocrite, be- 
cause his mind enlarges while his creed 
remains fixed, and his instinctive de- 
sire to free himself from bondage is 
checked, either by a selfish regard for 
his personal interest, or by an honest con- 
viction that the limits which he finds too 
narrow for himself are safe boundaries for 
less enlightened understandings. But to 
evade truth is always disastrous. Such a 
man despises himself for his insincerity, 
and despises others for their credulity. 



CHRISTIANITY. 



This is especially the case with priests, 
to whom the routine of worship is be- 
coming an old story, and who, through 
their long and intimate acquaintance 
with the workings of men's hearts, have 
learned, beyond any possibility of unlearn- 
ing, how very human are the means by 
which the masses are spiritually governed. 

The Jesuits, as a religious order, have 
always been notorious, not only for 
their ingenious subtilization and perver- 
sion of the plain rules of morality, but 
also for their ability to combine the 
most devoted zeal for the interests of 
the Church with the most philosophical 
skepticism respecting her dogmas; and 
other religious societies have shown the 
same untruthfulness, in a degree com- 
mensurate with the learning and impor- 
tance of their members. 

The spirit which allowed the priests of 

St. Peter's in Luther's time to travesty 
8 



ii4 



CHRISTIANITY. 



the mass, which prompted Cardinal de 
Rohan to call the Christian dogma "a 
poor copy of the pagan mythology,' - ' and 
Dillon, Bishop of Evreux, to boast that 
his only breviary was Voltaire's "Philo- 
sophical Dictionary," and Pope Leo X 
to say of the story of Christ, "It has 
been a profitable story for us," is the 
same which leads one learned Christian 
of the present day to prescribe accuracy 
for the cure of doubts concerning the 
Trinity, and another to declare that, 
although Christianity is founded upon 
falsehood, it is best for the world to 
accept it as truth — the same which per- 
mits hundreds of clergymen to preach 
what they do not really believe, and 
thousands of listeners to pay outward 
reverence to symbols which for them 
have lost all meaning and all sanctity. 

Every religious organization has sprung 
from an honest desire in the mind of 
some individual, or society of individ- 



CHRISTIANITY. 



uals, to establish the practice of a mor- 
ality above the standard of the age. 

In every instance, the new Church, 
sect, order, or whatever it may be 
called, has been at first pure in motive 
and beneficent in action, and has after- 
ward degenerated into a tool of polit- 
ical and spiritual tyranny, through in- 
crease of membership, and, consequently, of 
worldly possessions and social influence. 
And this is true, not only of state relig- 
ions, but of all sects and subdivisions of 
sects which have struggled into recogni- 
tion in spite of disabilities and persecutions. 

The deed of corruption is the same in 
all — an attempt to postulate the unknow- 
able in a creed, and a tendency to su- 
persede the practice of morality by dog- 
matic belief and outward worship. 

Whatever may be claimed as regards 
the good service rendered by the Church 
in past ages, it is plain that the world 



1 1 6 CHRISTIANITY. 

has now outgrown its need of her min- 
istrations, and will not much longer be 
deceived by her pretended mysteries. 

If the idea of Deity and of a system 
of vicarious atonement be indeed the 
natural and necessary creation of the 
human mind, in view of its conscious- 
ness of imperfection and its ability to 
conceive of perfection, then it follows 
that the substitution of a low origin 
for a "fall," as the cause of universal 
imperfection, will do away with the sig- 
nificance of the creeds which have been 
based upon the latter theory. 

It will be a great help to the race 
to get rid of the ancient superstition 
concerning the origin of evil. When 
men believe that "original sin" is only 
a tendency to return to the groveling 
habits of their undeveloped ancestry, that 
each generation has advanced beyond the 
average standard of its predecessor, and 
that there is no apparent limit to improve- 



CHRISTIANITY. 



117 



ment, they will be conscious of a stronger 
incentive to knowledge and right practice 
than was ever imparted by belief in an 
extraneous redemption and an undeserved 
heaven of beatitude. 

The doctrine of a vicarious atonement 
has been productive of far more harm 
than good. Those gentle souls which 
have found most consolation in the the- 
ory are the very ones which least need 
such a refuge. To most men this cor- 
ner-stone of Christianity has indeed 
proved "a stone of stumbling and a 
rock of offense," inasmuch as it has 
lent new force to temptation through its 
promise of instant and complete forgive- 
ness upon repentance, and its implied 
assurance that the natural consequences 
of wrong-doing shall also be averted 
from the transgressor. 

The amount of evil resulting from this 
monstrous doctrine is incalculable. Not 
only are souls naturally noble and sin- 



CHRISTIANITY. 



cere led astray thereby, to be taunted 
ever after by the horrible irony of a 
faith which promises to crown inevitable 
remorse with eternal peace; but the ma- 
jority of inferior natures are led in de- 
ceitful security through lives of injus- 
tice, selfishness, and petty immorality by 
means of the same convenient sophistry. 

No one can deny that the code of 
morals included in Christianity is a pure 
one. But Christianity, as a system of 
religion, is unable to enforce the moral 
duties it teaches; indeed, its practice is 
often in direct contradiction to its pre- 
cepts. Gorgeous temples and fat benefices 
do not recall the simple doctrines and 
self - sacrificing career of the supposed 
founder of the faith; the leniency of 
the Church toward wickedness in high 
places, the comparative indifference of 
the Church to the wrongs of the poor, 
the ambition of the Church to meddle 
in affairs of State, the hostility of the 



CHRISTIA NITY. i i 9 

Church toward all measures of reform 
which threaten its authority or its rev- 
enues — all these things impress outsiders 
with the idea that this vast institution 
is of entirely human origin, and has be- 
come a powerful hindrance to human 
liberty and progress. 

Christianity is not able to overcome 
the vices of society. Intemperance, li- 
centiousness, inordinate luxury, are as 
prevalent in Christendom as in heathen- 
dom, and want and ignorance are every- 
where productive of crime. Religious 
belief, of whatever kind, is not in it- 
self a sufficient guide to right conduct. 
A good man is good because he prac- 
tices morality; all the other qualities of 
his religion are, at best, harmless — at 
best, because there are few minds so 
well balanced as not to be made vision- 
ary and unpractical by the habitual con- 
templation of imaginary deities, and an 
imaginary future state, the conditions of 



120 CHRISTIANITY. 

which are entirely different from those 
that govern existence upon earth. 

For all purposes of intellectual recre- 
ation and spiritual elevation, the study 
of the visible wonders of the universe 
is sufficient, while the results of such 
observations and investigations are a 
positive benefit to mankind. 

On the other hand, the habit of look- 
ing at the world from the standpoint of 
a future life is enervating to those who 
indulge in it, and a hindrance to the 
acquisition of real knowledge; while the 
laws and conditions of every religion that 
has yet been devised tend to weaken 
moral responsibility and to pervert the 
will as regards sincerity of conduct. 

Religion displays a God, or Gods, 
who can be moved, by prayer, to inter- 
fere with the workings of the' most ob- 
vious laws of nature; a Saviour able 
and willing to blot out on the instant 



CHRISTIANITY. 



121 



every sin which the penitent may have 
committed ; a heaven standing open to all 
who repent and believe, though at the 
last gasp of a life spent in wickedness. 
And all these are offered to a race of 
beings taught to consider themselves as 
conceived in sin and shapen in iniquity, 
and certain to fall before temptation, 
unless protected by the miraculous in- 
terposition of an almighty but capricious 
power. To these fundamental errors are 
superadded the baleful influences of a 
priesthood and a Church, with all the 
superstitions and hypocrisies inevitably 
growing out of such an institution ; and 
the product is the world as we see it, 
wiser and better than the world of the 
past, only in so far as secular knowl- 
edge has been able to overpower eccle- 
siastical ignorance. 

The following extract, from a standard 
polemical work by a Protestant divine 
of the last century, contains a logical 



122 



CHRISTIANITY. 



deduction from accepted premises, and 
is a true summary of the doctrine of 
justification by faith : 

"Even adultery and murder do not hurt 
the pleasant children, but rather work for 
tlieir good. God sees no sin in believers, 
whatever sin they may commit. My sins 
might displease God; my person is always 
acceptable to him. Though I should outsin 
Manasses, I should not the less be a pleasant 
child, because God always views me in Christ. " 

A suggestive contrast to the above 
statement is found in the following quo- 
tations from the Parsis' Catechism: 

" There is no Saviour. In the other 
world you shall receive a recompense accord- 
ing to your actions. Your Saviour is your 
deeds, and God himself.'' 

"If any man commit sin under the be- 
lief that he shall be saved by somebody, 
both the deceiver and the deceived shall be 
damned to the day of Rasta Kites. 

Now the Parsis are celebrated the 



CHRISTIANITY. 123 

world over for the purity and integrity 
of their conduct. 

The Jews, also, who have never had 
a Redeemer, and who have no longer a 
Temple and sacrifices for sin, are an 
eminently moral people. Notwithstand- 
ing all their disadvantages, they are 
physically an exceptionally healthy race, 
and crime of all kinds is very rare 
among them. 

They always take care of their own 
sick and poor, and it is not from among 
the children of Israel that houses of 
prostitution are supplied with either in- 
mates or visitors. 



Among all religions it will be found 
that those sects which lay more stress 
upon individual responsibility than upon 
Divine interposition are the most to be 
respected from a human standpoint. 

Belief in the orthodox creed of Chris- 
tendom, as in the expiatory systems of 



124 



CHRISTIANITY. 



heathendom, is necessarily demoralizing 
to the character. 

The doctrine of the Trinity involves 
contradictions and absurdities which it is 
a shock to sincerity to accept, and a 
strong faith in the " Scheme of Re- 
demption" is apt to render the con- 
science very elastic as regards truthful- 
ness in temporal affairs. 

Those persons who, while holding such 
a creed, have been able to carry through 
life a conscience void of offense, have 
either never been tempted by circum- 
stances to test the value of a vicarious 
atonement, or have been blessed by 
nature with less of guile (and perhaps 
of logical faculty) than the majority of 
their fellows. To the race in general the 
gift of a Saviour, by means of what- 
ever creed, has been a curse. 

The maxim of Pythagoras, "Reverence 
thyself" is much better calculated to 
keep the conscience clear, and the stand- 



CHRISTIANITY. 



ard of action high and pure, than is 
the theory of total depravity inculcated 
by the Christian system. The doctrine 
that man is of himself utterly unable 
to do any good thing is a monstrous 
libel upon human nature, and a seduc- 
tive agent of evil in the presence of 
temptation. In its very best form, re- 
liance upon an invisible power is weak- 
ening to the character. It tends to 
make men either timid or fanatical. 

Luther's confidence in an Almighty 
Protector gave him the needed courage 
to face his enemies at Worms; but else- 
where this same belief betrayed him more 
than once into arrogance and unright- 
eous dealing. His passionately earnest 
words before the Diet, " Here I stand. I 
cannot do otherwise. God help me! Amen," 
are justly treasured as among the most 
sublime and pathetic of human utter- 
ances. But when truth is to be de- 
fended at the peril of life, or of all 
that makes life desirable, it is still no- 



126 



CHRISTIANITY. 



bier and more brave to be able to say: 
"Here I stand. I cannot do otherwise.''' 

Christianity has not promoted peace; 
on the contrary, the bloodiest and most 
revengeful wars of Christendom have 
been religious wars. 

Moreover, it must not be forgotten 
that Christianity has been established in 
many parts of the world through the 
power of the sword, and that the per- 
secution of heretics has been a charac- 
teristic trait of the Church, both Cath- 
olic and Protestant, in every age. That 
persecution in our own time does not 
often extend to physical torture and 
actual destruction of life is not due to 
any change in Christianity itself, but sole- 
ly to the more equal administration of jus- 
tice through the influence of education. 

Nor is it safe to assert that the spirit 
which can still maliciously disturb dis- 
believers and misbelievers in their pro- 



CHRISTIANITY. 



127 



perty, their influence, their domestic 
peace and their individual privacy — nay, 
which pursues them after death, and 
denies them honorable sepulture — may 
not again break out into the fiendish 
excesses of the past, should the future 
ever afford a like opportunity. 

It is to the everlasting- honor of 
Buddhism that, although equally mis- 
sionary in spirit with Christianity, it has 
never resorted to persecution as a means 
of obtaining proselytes. 

To say that Christianity is unable to 
conquer the cardinal vices of society — in- 
temperance, licentiousness, luxury, war — 
is simply to say that Christianity, as 
a system of belief, has no power to 
alter the conditions which create those 
vices, because its theories tend to strength- 
en and perpetuate such conditions, and 
thereby to hinder the progress of the race. 

Irresponsible power in Church or State 



128 



CHRISTIANITY. 



is sure to be attended with injustice and 
cruelty. The Golden Rule of all mor- 
alists, "Love thy neighbor as thyself," 
is the only safeguard for individuals 
and for communities. And this rule 
is independent of religious belief. 

Not until the interests of property are 
conducted upon unselfish principles will 
the true balance between Capital and 
Labor be discovered. 

Not until the laws which govern the 
reproduction of the human species are 
fully understood and wisely obeyed will 
the race attain its highest development. 

Through the practice of morality ac- 
cording to the ever advancing standard 
of each generation, man will at last arrive 
at the solution of all social problems, and 
be able to remove all obstacles to his 
perfection and consequent happiness. 



THE END, 



